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When I say footprint, I'm alluding to installations like the Taihang Solar Farm in China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n731JjYSySY https://www.youtube.com/wa

When I say footprint, I'm alluding to installations like the Taihang Solar Farm in China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n731JjYSySY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n731JjYSySY And, by footprint I mean the amount of space these panels occupy on the landscape. Putting solar farms in a desert is an attractive idea and way less impactful than covering hillsides in green and temperate areas. My understanding, though, is that the transmission of all that energy is the real issue. You can build a giant solar farm in the Mojave desert but distributing it to farther parts of the U.S. is a problem.

cedilla 5y ago
Even if we created all our power from solar, it's negligible in land use compared to things like roads or agricultural land.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I don't think this is a meaningful comparison because they are not interchangeable and they exist independently of each other. The large footprint of farmland and roads doesn't make solar appealing in comparison, it just means that other facets of civilization are worse in terms of land use. To me, at least, just because something is way worse does not mean the other thing is acceptable because of it. I also believe the amount of land we would need to convert to solar would be mostly be newly developed land. We probably wouldn't be converting already productive and utilized land.
  - cedilla 5y ago
    It is a meaningful comparison. Agricultural and road use is huge. The solar installation you linked looks huge, but really, I could just as easily link an image of a uranium mine. Some of them are positively enormous - but that doesn't mean that land use for nuclear is. A pessimistic scenario for Germany requires about 2.5% of the area for 100% renewable energy with today's technology. In a very densely populated country not exactly blessed with loads of sunshine hours. Taking into account the possibility of dual use (PV on buildings, wind turbines on farmland etc) we'll probably use about two times as much land for renewables than we use for cemeteries. It's very manageable.

cedilla 5y ago

Even if we created all our power from solar, it's negligible in land use compared to things like roads or agricultural land.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
I don't think this is a meaningful comparison because they are not interchangeable and they exist independently of each other. The large footprint of farmland and roads doesn't make solar appealing in comparison, it just means that other facets of civilization are worse in terms of land use. To me, at least, just because something is way worse does not mean the other thing is acceptable because of it. I also believe the amount of land we would need to convert to solar would be mostly be newly developed land. We probably wouldn't be converting already productive and utilized land.
- cedilla 5y ago
  It is a meaningful comparison. Agricultural and road use is huge. The solar installation you linked looks huge, but really, I could just as easily link an image of a uranium mine. Some of them are positively enormous - but that doesn't mean that land use for nuclear is. A pessimistic scenario for Germany requires about 2.5% of the area for 100% renewable energy with today's technology. In a very densely populated country not exactly blessed with loads of sunshine hours. Taking into account the possibility of dual use (PV on buildings, wind turbines on farmland etc) we'll probably use about two times as much land for renewables than we use for cemeteries. It's very manageable.